Death Penalty, Life With & Without Parole

Death Penalty

Data, policy, and analysis of the death penalty

• Prisoners in Ohio’s Execution List Defined By Intellectual Impairment, Mental Illness, Trauma, and Young Age Fair Punishment Project, August, 2017“Ohio is poised to violate constitutional limitations by scheduling the executions of nearly a dozen individuals with devastating impairments, including mental illnesses, childhood abuse, and intellectual disabilities.”
• Capital Punishment, 2014-2015 Bureau of Justice Statistics, May, 2017“Two states accounted for 80% of the executions [in 2016]: Georgia executed nine inmates, and Texas executed seven.”
• The Death Penalty in Five Florida Counties: Disproportionately Used Against Persons with Significant Mental Impairments Fair Punishment Project, January, 2017“These findings have raised a legitimate question as to whether Florida’s capital punishment scheme–even one with a unanimous jury requirement– is capable of limiting application of the death penalty to the most culpable offenders.”
• The Death Penalty in Five Florida Counties: Disproportionately Used Against Persons with Significant Mental Impairments Fair Punishment Project, January, 2017“These findings have raised a legitimate question as to whether Florida’s capital punishment scheme–even one with a unanimous jury requirement– is capable of limiting application of the death penalty to the most culpable offenders.”
• Severe Mental Illness and the Death Penalty American Bar Association, December, 2016“…[N]one of the current legal mechanisms afford adequate protection against the death penalty to those diagnosed with serious mental disorders or disabilities.”
• One Year Later: Race Relations and the Emanuel 9 Shooting University of South Carolina Institute for Public Service and Policy Research, June, 2016“Among blacks, 30.9% favored the death penalty, while 64.7% believed he should receive life without parole; among whites, 64.2% supported the death penalty if found guilty in this case and 29.7% felt he should be given life without parole.”
• America’s Top Five Deadliest Prosecutors: How Overzealous Personalities Drive the Death Penalty The Fair Punishment Project, June, 2016“There are more than 3,100 counties, 2,400 head prosecutors, and thousands of line prosecutors in America — yet only a tiny handful of prosecutors are responsible for a vastly disproportionate number of death sentences.”
• One Year Later: Race Relations and the Emanuel 9 Shooting University of South Carolina Institute for Public Service and Policy Research, June, 2016“Among blacks, 30.9% favored the death penalty, while 64.7% believed he should receive life without parole; among whites, 64.2% supported the death penalty if found guilty in this case and 29.7% felt he should be given life without parole.”
• Louisiana Death-Sentenced Cases and Their Reversals, 1976-2015 The Journal of Race, Gender, and Poverty, April, 2016“Not only are these reversal rates extremely high, but the racial discrepancies are shocking as well.”
• The Impact of Race, Gender, and Geography on Florida Executions Frank R. Baumgartner, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, January, 2016“Florida’s use of the death penalty in the modern era has been marked by substantial disparities by the race and gender of the victim of the crime, and by geography.”
• Lethally Deficient: Direct Appeals in Texas Death Penalty Cases Texas Defender Service, 2016“Review by the U.S. Supreme Court was not sought in 34.6% of the cases surveyed, meaning that defense lawyers waived the first opportunity for federal review in more than a third of Texas death penalty cases decided on direct appeal between 2009 and 2015.”
• Battle Scars: Military Veterans and the Death Penalty Death Penalty Information Center, November, 2015“Although a definitive count has yet to be made, approximately 300 veterans are on death row today, and many others have already been executed.”
• Race-Of-Victim Discrepancies in Homicides and Executions, Louisiana 1976-2015 Loyola University of New Orleans Journal of Public Interest Law, August, 2015“Black male victims comprise 61% of homicide victims in present day Louisiana, yet their killers have been executed in only 3 cases out of 12,949 homicides since Gregg v Georgia reinstated the death penalty in 1976.”
• Death Sentences and Executions 2014 Amnesty International, March, 2015“The USA continued to be the only country to put people to death in the region, although executions dropped from 39 in 2013 to 35 in 2014 – reflecting a steady decline in the use of the death penalty in the country over the past years.”
• Designed to Break You: Human Rights Violations on Texas’ Death Row Human Rights Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law, 2015“Every individual on Texas’ death row thus spends approximately 23 hours a day in complete isolation for the entire duration of their sentence, which, on average, lasts more than a decade.”
• Capital Punishment In The United States, 2013 – Statistical Tables Bureau of Justice Statistics, December, 2014“At yearend 2013, 35 states and the Federal Bureau of Prisons held 2,979 inmates under sentence of death, which was 32 fewer than at yearend 2012.”
• Irreversible Error Recommended Reforms for Preventing and Correcting Errors in the Administration of Capital Punishment The Constitution Project, May, 2014“…the system must be willing to acknowledge errors that could result in the execution of an innocent person . Each jurisdiction should adopt legislation that sets standards to facilitate the review of credible post-conviction claims of innocence.”
• Capital Punishment, 2012 – Statistical Tables (Revised) Bureau of Justice Statistics, May, 2014“At yearend 2012, 35 states and the Federal Bureau of Prisons held 3,033 inmates under sentence of death, which was 32 fewer than at yearend 2011.”
• Victim Gender and the Death Penalty Cornell Law School, March, 2014“…our analyses suggest that victim gender continues to influence capital sentencing decisions.”
• The Death Penalty in 2014: Year End Report Death Penalty Information Center, 2014“There were 35 executions in 7 states, the fewest number put to death since 1994.”
• Prisoners executed under civil authority in the United States, by year, region, and jurisdiction, 1977-2013. Bureau of Justice Statistics, December, 2013
• The Death Penalty in 2013: Year End Report Death Penalty Information Center, December, 2013“Public support for the death penalty reached its lowest level in 40 years.”
• The 2% Death Penalty: How a Minority of Counties Produce Most Death Cases At Enormous Costs to All Death Penalty Information Center, October, 2013“All of the state executions since the death penalty was reinstated stem from cases in just 15% of the counties in the U.S. All of the 3,125 inmates on death row as of January 1, 2013 came from just 20% of the counties.”
• The Texas Death Penalty Assessment Report An Analysis of Texas’s Death Penalty Laws, Procedures, and Practices American Bar Association, September, 2013“…since 1992, Texas has paid over $60 million to those it has wrongfully imprisoned…”
• The Virginia Death Penalty Assessment Report An Analysis of Virginia’s Death Penalty Laws, Procedures, and Practices American Bar Association, August, 2013“Between 1989 and 2013, at least 18 people in Virginia whose convictions were based largely on eyewitness misidentifications have been exonerated of serious violent felonies following DNA testing or the discovery of new evidence.”
• A Death Before Dying: Solitary Confinement on Death Row ACLU, July, 2013“93 percent of states lock up their death row prisoners for 22 or more hours per day. Most of these prisoners live under conditions of extreme social isolation and enforced idleness.”
• Death Sentences and Executions 2012 Amnesty International, April, 2013“While at least 682 people were executed in 2012 – in 2011, 680 executions were recorded – the number of people recorded as sentenced to death fell from 1,923 (in 63 countries) in 2011 to 1,722 (in 58 countries) in 2012.”
• Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2012: The Year in Review Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, December, 2012“Seven of the new death row inmates in 2012 are African-American, one is Hispanic, and one is a white female. Over the last five years, nearly 75% of all death sentences in Texas have been imposed on people of color – 46% African-American and 28% Hispanic.”
• The Death Penalty in 2012: Year End Report Death Penalty Information Center, December, 2012“The number of new death sentences in 2012 was the second lowest since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.”
• The Missouri Death Penalty Assessment Report An Analysis of Missouri’s Death Penalty Laws, Procedures, and Practices American Bar Association, April, 2012“Of those sixty-eight inmates who were executed…Fifty-two …were sentenced to death for murdering a white victim, while sixteen were sentenced to death for murdering an African-American victim.”
• Continued Majority Support for Death Penalty More Concern among Opponents about Wrongful Convictions Pew Research Center, January, 2012“Public opinion about the death penalty has changed only modestly in recent years, but there continues to be far less support for the death penalty than there was in the mid-1990s.”
• A Stubborn Legacy: The Overwhelming Importance of Race in Jury Selection in 173 Post-Batson North Carolina Capital Trials Michigan State University College of Law, 2012“Over the twenty-year period we examined, prosecutors struck eligible black venire members at about 2.5 times the rate they struck eligible venire members who were not black.”
• The Kentucky Death Penalty Assessment Report An Analysis of Kentucky’s Death Penalty Laws, Procedures, and Practices American Bar Association, December, 2011“Kentucky does not require the accreditation of its forensic laboratories, MEO, or any of the 120 county coroner offices.”
• Capital Punishment, 2010- Statistical Tables Bureau of Justice Statistics, December, 2011“Of those under sentence of death at yearend, 55% were white and 42% were black. The 388 Hispanic inmates under sentence of death accounted for 14% of inmates with a known ethnicity. 98% of inmates under sentence of death were male, and 2% were female.”
• The Racial Geography of the Federal Death Penalty Washington Law Review Association, December, 2010“Federal death sentences are sought disproportionately where the expansion of the venire from the county to the district level has a dramatic demographic impact on the racial make-up of the jury.”
• Comparing Homicides to Capital Cases East Baton Rouge Parish, 1990-2008 Timothy Lyman, November, 2010([T]here is a less than one-in-ten-thousand chance that the prosecuted cases were a racially random sample drawn from the homicide group.)
• The Death Penalty in 2007: Year End Report Death Penalty Information Center, December, 2007“Almost all (86%) of the executions in 2007 were in the South, and 62% of the executions took place in one state, Texas. Executions have declined 57% since 1999.”
• The Death Penalty in 2007: Year End Report Death Penalty Information Center, December, 2007“Almost all (86%) of the executions in 2007 were in the South, and 62% of the executions took place in one state, Texas. Executions have declined 57% since 1999.”
• The Pennsylvania Death Penalty Assessment Report An Analysis of Pennsylvania’s Death Penalty Laws, Procedures, and Practices American Bar Association, October, 2007“The study found that defendants were more than twice as likely to receive the death penalty when the jury was composed of six or more white male jurors…”
• The Ohio Death Penalty Assessment Report An Analysis of Ohio’s Death Penalty Laws, Procedures, and Practices American Bar Association, September, 2007“…the chances of a death sentence in Hamilton County are 2.7 times higher than in the rest of the state, 3.7 times higher than in Cuyahoga County, and 6.2 times higher than in Franklin County.”
• Who Survives on Death Row? An Individual and Contextual Analysis American Civil Liberties Union, August, 2007“The findings show that despite efforts to transcend an unfortunate racial past, residues of this fierce discrimination evidently still linger, at least when the most morally critical decision about punishment is decided.”
• The Persistent Problem of Racial Disparities in the Federal Death Penalty American Civil Liberties Union, June, 2007“This paper details the profoundly troubling evidence that racial disparities continue to plague the modern federal death penalty.”
• The Persistent Problem of Racial Disparities in the Federal Death Penalty American Civil Liberties Union, June, 2007“[M]odern Attorneys General seek the death penalty at far higher rates if the victim is White, and White federal defendants are far more likely to have their death charges reduced to life sentences through plea bargaining.”
• Prisoner-assisted homicide: more ‘volunteer’ executions loom Amnesty International, May, 2007“Race and mental health appear to be the strongest predictors of who will waive their appeals – most”
• The Tennessee Death Penalty Assessment Report An Analysis of Tennessee’s Death Penalty Laws, Procedures, and Practices American Bar Association, March, 2007“Often, however, jury instructions are poorly written and poorly conveyed, which confuses jurors about the applicable law and the extent of their responsibilities.”
• The Indiana Death Penalty Assessment Report An Analysis of Indiana’s Death Penalty Laws, Procedures, and Practices American Bar Association, February, 2007“…white offenders received harsher sentences for murder than offenders belonging to racial or ethnic minority groups”
• New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commision Report New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commision, January, 2007“There is no compelling evidence that the New Jersey death penalty rationally serves a legitimate penological intent.”
• Death Penalty on the Decline Amnesty International, 2007“The Annual Death Penalty Statistics… show a worldwide trend towards abolition with an encouraging 25 per cent decrease in executions and death sentences in 2006.”(Overview of wold trends, includes links to facts and statistics.)
• Capital Punishment, 2005 Bureau of Justice Statistics, December, 2006“Of those under sentence of death, 56% were white, 42% were black, and 2% were of other races. Fifty-two women were under sentence of death in 2005, up from 47 in 1995.”
• The Death Penalty in 2006: Year End Report Death Penalty Information Center, December, 2006“Executions dropped to their lowest level in 10 years as many states grappled with problems related to wrongful convictions and the lethal injection process.”
• Evaluating Fairness and Accuracy in State Death Penalty Systems: The Florida Death Penalty Assessment Report American Bar Association, September, 2006“[R]esearch establishes that many Florida capital jurors do not understand their role and responsibilities when deciding whether to impose a death sentence.”
• The Florida Death Penalty Assessment Report An Analysis of Florida’s Death Penalty Laws, Procedures, and Practices American Bar Association, September, 2006“Since 1973, the State of Florida has exonerated twenty-two death-row inmates, which is more than any other state in the nation.”
• The Alabama Death Penalty Assessment Report An Analysis of Alabama’s Death Penalty Laws, Procedures, and Practices American Bar Association, June, 2006“…the State of Alabama does not require that an indigent individual charged with or convicted of a capital felony be appointed counsel and provided with resources for experts and investigators at every stage of the proceedings.”
• The Arizona Death Penalty Assessment Report An Analysis of Arizona’s Death Penalty Laws, Procedures, and Practices American Bar Association, June, 2006“The State of Arizona provides only one to two percent of the funding for the cost of capital representation, significantly underfunding these indigent defense services.”
• So Long as They Die: Lethal Injections in the United States Human Rights Watch, April, 2006“[P]prisoners in the United States are executed by means that the American Veterinary Medical Association regards as too cruel to use on dogs and cats.”
• Mandatory Justice: The Death Penalty Revisited The Constitution Project, February, 2006“[P]rovides a list of specific and innovative tactics for improving the fairness and reliability of capital punishment systems in the United States.”
• The Georgia Death Penalty Report An Analysis of Georgia’s Death Penalty Laws, Procedures, and Practices American Bar Association, January, 2006“…as of August 1998, fifty-five of the 119 inmates on Georgia’s death row were black and of the 88 persons awaiting death penalty trial, 53 were black males, 26 were white males, 2 were black females, 4 were white females, and 3 were Hispanic males.”
• Capital Punishment, 2004 Bureau of Justice Statistics, November, 2005
• Blind Justice: Juries Deciding Life and Death With Only Half the Truth Death Penalty Information Center, October, 2005“How Death Penalty Jurors are Unfairly Selected, Manipulated, and Kept in the Dark”
• Broken Justice: The Death Penalty in Alabama ACLU, October, 2005“At least 30 current death row prisoners have no lawyer. Alabama’s death row occupants are overwhelmingly poor — 95 percent are indigent — and minority.”
• Death Row U.S.A. Summer 2005 NAACP LDF, May, 2005
• Death Row U.S.A. Winter 2005 NAACP LDF, March, 2005
• Death Row U.S.A. Fall 2004 NAACP LDF, December, 2004
• The death penalty in 2004: Year end report Death Penalty Information Center, December, 2004
• Capital Punishment, 2003 Bureau of Justice Statistics, November, 2004
• Innocence and the Crisis in the American Death Penalty Death Penalty Information Center, September, 2004
• Death Row U.S.A. Summer 2004 NAACP LDF, July, 2004
• Death Row U.S.A. Spring 2004 NAACP LDF, April, 2004
• Death Row U.S.A. Winter 2004 NAACP LDF, January, 2004
• The Death Penalty in the Year 2003: Year End Report Death Penalty Information Center, December, 2003
• Capital Punishment 2002 Bureau of Justice Statistics, November, 2003
• Death Row U.S.A. Fall 2003 NAACP LDF, October, 2003
• Capital Punishment in New York State Statistics from Eight Years of Representation New York Capital Defender Office, August, 2003
• Death Row U.S.A. Summer 2003 NAACP LDF, July, 2003
• Death by discrimination: The continuing role of race in capital cases Amnesty International, April, 2003
• Death Row U.S.A. Spring 2003 NAACP LDF, April, 2003
• Study of the Imposition of the Death Penalty in Connecticut State of Connecticut Commission on the Death Penalty, January, 2003
• An Empirical Analysis of Maryland’s Death Sentencing System With Respect to the Influence of Race and Legal Jurisdiction Professor Raymond Paternoster, Univ. of Maryland, January, 2003
• Death Row U.S.A. Winter 2003 NAACP LDF, January, 2003
• A State of Denial: Texas Justice and the Death Penalty Texas Defender Service, December, 2002
• Capital Punishment 2001 Bureau of Justice Statistics, December, 2002
• Capital Case Commission Report (Arizona) Arizona Attorney General, December, 2002
• The Death Penalty in 2002: Year End Report Death Penalty Information Center, November, 2002
• Death Row U.S.A. Fall 2002 NAACP LDF, October, 2002
• Common Sense Says… That people on Death Row often had the state’s worst lawyers at trial. Common Sense Foundation, October, 2002“More than one in six current death row inmates was represented at trial by lawyers who have been disciplined by the North Carolina State Bar”
• The Disposition of Nebraska Capital and Non-Capital Homicide Cases Nebraska Crime Commission, October, 2002(death sentences 5 times more likely if victim well to do)
• Indecent and internationally illegal The death penalty and child offenders Amnesty International, September, 2002
• Dignity Denied: The Experience of Murder Victims’ Family Members Who Oppose the Death Penalty Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation, August, 2002
• Death Row U.S.A. Summer 2002 NAACP LDF, July, 2002
• Death Row U.S.A. Spring 2002 NAACP LDF, April, 2002
• Death sentence reversals cast doubt on system Courtroom mistakes put executions on hold Howard Mintz, San Jose Mercury News, April, 2002(focuses on California and the high rate at which federal judges overturn California judges who vote for death)
• Report of the Governor’s Commission on Capital Punishment Illinois Governor George H. Ryan’s Commission on Capital Punishment, April, 2002
• A Broken System, Part II: Why There Is So Much Error in Capital Cases, and What Can Be Done About It James Liebman, February, 2002
• Facts and Figures on the Death Penalty Amnesty International, February, 2002(lots of international comparisons, regularly updated)
• Arbitrary, discriminatory, and cruel: an aide-mémoire to 25 years of judicial killing Amnesty International, January, 2002(summarizes the cases of the executed, sorted by theme)
• Innocence and the Death Penalty Death Penalty Information Center, January, 2002
• Lethal Indifference: The Fatal Combination of Incompetent Attorneys and Unaccountable Courts Texas Defender Service, 2002
• The Death Penalty and Human Rights U.S. Death Penalty and International Law Death Penalty Information Center, 2002
• Drug Companies and Their Role in Aiding Executions National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, 2002
• The Death Penalty in 2001: Year End Report Death Penalty Information Center, December, 2001
• Capital Punishment 2000 Bureau of Justice Statistics, December, 2001“Thirty-seven States and Federal government held almost 3,600 inmates on death row”(This report presents the characteristics of persons under sentence of death on December 31, 2000, and of persons executed in 2000.)
• Review of Virginia’s System of Capital Punishment Joint Legislative Audit Review Commission, December, 2001
• No return to execution: The US death penalty as a barrier to extradition Amnesty International, November, 2001“overview of the emerging global consensus against capital punishment”(One more reason for the USA to abolish the death penalty is that its increasingly isolated resort to this punishment is undermining international cooperation on law enforcement)
• Death Row U.S.A. Fall 2001 NAACP LDF, October, 2001
• Toward Greater Awareness: The American Bar Association Call for a Moratorium on Executions Gains Ground American Bar Association, August, 2001
• Protecting the Consular Rights of Foreign Nationals Facing the Death Penalty Amnesty International, August, 2001
• Death without Justice: A Guide for Examining the Administration of the Death Penalty in the United States ABA Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, June, 2001
• Report to the Supreme Court Systemic Proportionality Review Project 2000-2001 Term New Jersey Supreme Court, June, 2001“there is unsettling statistical evidence indicating that cases involving killers of White victims are more likely to progress to a penalty trial than cases involving killers of African-American victims.”
• Illusion of Control: “Consensual” executions, the impending death of Timothy McVeigh, and the brutalizing futility of capital punishment Amnesty International, June, 2001
• How Mistaken and Perjured Eyewitness Identification Testimony Put 46 Innocent Americans on Death Row Northwestern University School of Law, May, 2001
• Race and the Death Penalty in North Carolina An Empirical Analysis: 1993-1997 The Common Sense Foundation, April, 2001
• Beyond Reason: The Death Penalty and Offenders with Mental Retardation Human Rights Watch, March, 2001
• Dying Twice: Conditions on New York’s Death Row Association of the Bar of the City of New York, 2001
• Capital Punishment, 1999 Bureau of Justice Statistics, December, 2000
• The Death Penalty in 2000: Year End Report Death Penalty Information Center & Justice Project, December, 2000
• A State of Denial: Texas Justice and the Death Penalty The Texas Defender Service, October, 2000
• Survey of the Federal Death Penalty System Department of Justice, September, 2000
• Sentenced to Death: A Report on Washington Supreme Court Rulings In Capital Cases ACLU of Washington, August, 2000
• Worlds Apart Violations of the Rights of Foreign Nationals on Death Row – Cases of Europeans Amnesty International, July, 2000
• A Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases, 1973-1995 James S. Liebman, Jeffrey Fagan & Valerie West, June, 2000
• Elected Judges and the Death Penalty in Texas: Why Full Habeas Corpus Review by Independent Federal Judges Is Indispensable to Protecting Constitutional Rights Stephen B. Bright, 2000
• Capital Punishment 1998 Bureau of Justice Statistics, December, 1999“Eighteen States executed 68 prisoners during 1998 — eighty-nine executed so far this year”
• International Perspectives on the Death Penalty: A Costly Isolation for the U.S. Death Penalty Information Center, October, 1999
• Death in Texas: Not even a pretense of fairness Stephen Bright, Southern Center for Human Rights, July, 1999(This article appeared in The Champion.)
• On the wrong side of history: Children and the death penalty in the USA Amnesty International, October, 1998
• The Death Penalty in Black & White: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Decides Death Penalty Information Center, June, 1998
• Innocence and the Death Penalty: The Increasing Danger of Executing the Innocent Death Penalty Information Center, July, 1997
• Killing for Votes: The Dangers of Politicizing the Death Penalty Process Death Penalty Information Center, October, 1996
• A Preference for Vengeance: The Death Penalty and the Treatment of Prisoners in Georgia Southern Center for Human Rights, June, 1996
• Capital Punishment on the 25th Anniversary of Furman v. Georgia Southern Center for Human Rights, June, 1996
• Twenty Years of Capital Punishment: A Re-evaluation Death Penalty Information Center, June, 1996
• With Justice for Few: The Growing Crisis in Death Penalty Representation Death Penalty Information Center, October, 1995
• A World Leader in Executing Juveniles Human Rights Watch, March, 1995
• Judges and the Politics of Death: Deciding Between the Bill of Rights and the Next Election in Capital Cases Stephen B. Bright, 1995
• On the Front Line: Law Enforcement Views on the Death Penalty Death Penalty Information Center, 1995
• Discrimination, Death and Denial: The Tolerance of Racial Discrimination in Infliction of the Death Penalty Stephen B. Bright, 1995
• The future of the death penalty in the U.S.: A Texas-sized crisis Death Penalty Information Center, May, 1994
• Racial Disparities: in Federal Death Penalty Prosecutions 1988-1994 Death Penalty Information Center, 1994
• Innocence and the Death Penalty: Assessing the Danger of Mistaken Executions Death Penalty Information Center, October, 1993
• Sentencing for Life: Americans Embrace Alternatives to the Death Penalty Death Penalty Information Center, 1993
• Millions Misspent: What Politicians Don’t Say About the High Costs of the Death Penalty Death Penalty Information Center, October, 1992
• Justice on the Cheap: The Philadelphia Story Death Penalty Information Center, May, 1992(comparing expenditures for death penalty defense with other PA counties)
• Killing Justice: Government Misconduct and the Death Penalty Death Penalty Information Center, March, 1992
• Buckle of the Death Belt: The Death Penalty in Microcosm (Chattahoochee Judicial District) Death Penalty Information Center, 1991(racial discrimination in one region of Georgia)
• Death Penalty Sentencing: Research Indicates Pattern of Racial Disparities Government Accountability Office, February, 1990“Our synthesis of the 28 studies shows a pattern of evidence indicating racial disparities in the charging, sentencing, and imposition of the death penalty….”